


Harry Potter and the Rules Against Perpetuities

by Chillinmetaphorically



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Law, Legal, Property Law, Rules Against Perpetuities, Seriously this is about property law, Trusts & Estates, and unless you're a law student or attorney it's gonna be really dry, but if you're on here instead of studying for your property final than BOY is this a gift!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 23:21:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16690867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chillinmetaphorically/pseuds/Chillinmetaphorically
Summary: “You see,” explained Hermione, “Often times people try to control future generations by delaying the vesting of property, but they often have poor foresight and property can be more valuable another way. Because of this, there’s a Rule Against Perpetuities.”“What in the name of Merlin is a perpetuity?” Malfoy sneered.Harry and Hermione start a law firm and teach their new client Draco Malfoy a little bit about trusts and estates





	Harry Potter and the Rules Against Perpetuities

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while I was bored in class. Not an attorney yet, only a law student, didn't take the bar, so don't trust my opinions or advice on anything.
> 
> Also, side-note, I used American property law. Idk if the UK is different.
> 
> I never planned on actually publishing this, but here we are.

When Harry and Hermione opened shop for the day, waiting outside the office for them was a very unexpected client: Draco Malfoy.

 

After the divorces of three pairs of their closest friends (who knew that marrying at eighteen wasn’t the smartest idea?), Harry and Hermione realized that wizarding Britain was sorely lacking in solicitors. Both quit their jobs, and after studying vigorously for their W.I.L.D.C.A.T. exams (Wizarding Intelligence & Logical Deduction Calculation Admissions Test), attended a small private law school called Ambidexter that Salazar Slytherin had begun after his retirement from Hogwarts. Hermione and Harry had been first and second in their class, respectively. Because they were the best solicitors in wizarding Britain, everyone brought their legal issues to them, and the pair, having started a small boutique firm called Granger & Potter, adjudicated a wide range of issues from keeping innocent wizards out of Azkaban, to workplace muggleborn discrimination, to small tort claims.

 

Harry leaned over Hermione to peek as she scanned the document. Malfoy sat across from them, looking very tired. Harry read aloud:

 

_ The Last Will and Testament of Narcissa Malfoy: _

_ My estate I give to Draco for life, then to his first pureblood heir to reach the age of twenty five.  _

 

“Simple enough,” said Malfoy, “I get the estate, and then I have to pass it down to my firstborn when I die. Or when he turns twenty five? I'm not quite sure, actually.”

 

“Not so simple,” chirped Hermione, “there’s quite a lot to unpack here.”

 

Malfoy sighed. “Leave it to my mother to make everything difficult for me.”

 

Draco Malfoy had had a rough go of it this year. Every week, it seemed, the Daily Prophet had more to say about him. From interviews with victims detailing his father’s war crimes, to his messy divorce from Astoria Greengrass, and now his mother’s passing. Harry almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

 

Harry scanned the document. It seemed Narcissa had given her son life estate, and then her first grandchild a reversion in fee simple that is not certain to become possessory. If Malfoy currently had a child-- a pureblood one-- that child would have a vested remainder. But he was currently childless. Meaning that if Malfoy died tomorrow, the estate would revert back to Narcissa and the fee simple would be transferred to his next of kin. Narcissa was a Black, and with Sirius, Regulus, and Bellatrix dead, she had inherited the Black fortune. Everything but Grimmauld Place, which had been given to Sirius and, in accordance with his will, fee simple was transferred to Harry. This meant that Harry could do whatever he wanted with the house-- he could sell it, will it to anyone he wanted, or ignore it and upon his death, let it simply pass on to his next of kin. He hadn’t been there in a while, so for all he knew, in fifteen years he could find that the house had been adversely possessed and lose it altogether.

 

So, since Narcissa specifically mentioned the life estate, he began with the presumption that she did not want him to inherit the fee simple, meaning she would rather the estate transfer to Narcissa’s next of kin which, racking his brain, Harry decided must be Andromeda, Narcissa’s estranged sister who was still alive and caring for Harry’s godson, Teddy Lupin. Meaning that Andromeda had a contingent remainder and Teddy had executory interest, both of which would be triggered if Malfoy’s heirs were not pureblood. Or, more accurately, if Malfoy died with no pureblood heirs.

 

“So you’re telling me,” Malfoy spat, “that if I don’t have a pureblood heir, Teddy Lupin inherits the entirety of the Malfoy estate when I die?”

 

“Not exactly.” said Hermione.

 

According to the will, the fee simple would go to the first of Draco’s pureblood children to reach the age of twenty five. Why Narcissa chose twenty five and not twenty one baffled Harry-- it made everything much more complicated.

 

“You see,” explained Hermione, “Often times people try to control future generations by delaying the vesting of property, but they often have poor foresight and property can be more valuable another way. Because of this, there’s a Rule Against Perpetuities.”

 

“What in the name of Merlin is a perpetuity?” Malfoy sneered.

 

“It’s a future interest in a property that would vest at a date beyond the lifetimes of everyone living during the creation of the interest, which is the day of the testator’s death. Plus twenty one years.” explained Harry, “If you had a child today, but then died tomorrow, that child could never inherit the estate because according to the rule of perpetuities, no interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. The creation of the interest would happen today, so the interest must vest by twenty one years after. Assuming you went and got someone pregnant at this very moment, twenty one years after today, your child could only be twenty one years old, not twenty five years old, as stated in the will, so the interest could not vest. There is no validating life, so the contingent remainder is void.”

 

“So..." began the blond, crunching the numbers in his head, "as long as I have a child of at least four when I die, then I’m okay and the estate would go to him and he could do whatever he wants with it.”

 

“We cannot prove that your first child to reach the age of twenty five will do so within twenty one years after your death, and we don’t live in a wait-and-see jurisdiction, so since the contingent remainder is void, it’s struck from the instrument, leaving you a life estate with a reversion to Narcissa.”

 

“Meaning Teddy gets it when I die either way.”

 

“No.”

 

“No?”

 

“Well, if you die, and the estate reverts back to Narcissa, and pureblood children or not, you would be her next of kin. So because of the lack of a validating life, the will is void and the estate is to be divvied out using intestacy laws. And because she's intestate, and you're her next of kin, you would get the fee simple absolute.”

  
“So it doesn’t matter either way-- I get the estate.”

 

“Precisely.”

 

“Well then why didn’t you just say that instead of spending all that time talking about perpetuities and complications?”

 

Harry glanced up at the clock on the wall that was keeping track of their billable hours, then looked back at Malfoy. “Just going over all the formalities.”


End file.
